2010 Barber Vintage Festival Sweepstakes winner Danny Dyer. 

Congratulations go to Danny “Gabe” Dyer, our winner in the Motorcycle Classics Barber Vintage Festival Sweepstakes! An avid motorcyclist with 40 years of riding under his belt, Danny turns out to be the perfect person to have won our sweepstakes to the 6th Annual Barber Vintage Festival. Why? Although he lives in Georgia, Danny’s never been to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in neighboring Alabama, only a few hours away. We're looking forward to seeing Danny there, along with a great selection of bikes at our annual Motorcycle Classics Barber Vintage Bike Show sponsored by Dairyland Cycle Insurance.

Accompanying Danny will be his wife, Kimberly. The pair will be treated to full hotel accommodations for three nights, dinner for two for the weekend, passes to the festival and the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, plus front row tickets to the Bator auction on Sunday. Pretty sweet deal, and all they had to do was sign up to win. Danny, a regular subscriber to Motorcycle Classics, says he’s never won a sweeps before, and he’s pretty stoked that his first win ever is taking him to the Barber Vintage Festival.

In addition to a 1984 Yamaha Virago XV1000L that he bought new, Danny, who works as a mechanic for a living, also has a 1973 Yamaha TX650 he bought in 1974. “I’ve been riding for almost 40 years,” Danny tells us, adding, “I’ve never been to the Barber Museum before, so we’re looking forward to this first time. We’re very excited and can’t wait to be there.”

Let that be a lesson to you the next time we run one of these cool sweepstakes! Which reminds me, there's still time to enter the Motorcycle Classics/Dairyland Cycle Insurance Bonneville Build Giveaway, the 2010 Triumph Bonneville we've turned into a very cool bobber/custom for the street. The sweepstakes closes at noon on Friday, October 8, and we'll draw the winner's name at the end of our show on Saturday, October 9. And one person will walk away with a very cool set of riding gear from Joe Rocket, so be there! – Richard Backus 

Glenn Bator at Bator Auctions has announced a new auction to be held during the 6^th Annual Barber Vintage Festival. Dubbed the “Parts & Project Bikes” auction, this new addition to the lineup of events at the Barber Festival will be held Friday, Oct. 8, starting at 2 p.m.

This should be a pretty interesting opportunity to acquire a new project bike or parts for an existing project. “We’ll have a bunch of stuff, including Yamaha RD350 and RD400 basket cases, engines, plus a huge collection of parts from Vintage Cosmo, which was Cosmopolitan Motors before they went out of business,” says Glenn Bator of Bator Auctions. “The Vintage Cosmo stuff is all NOS; Grimeca brakes, aluminum rims, all kinds of high-quality vintage stuff, and all at no reserve.” And it won’t be just a few items. “It’ll be tonnage, no doubt,” Bator says. Over 50 project bikes have already been consigned for the Friday auction.

Anyone can bring parts to sell at the Friday auction, and Bator says he’s inviting swap meet vendors who need to pare down their inventory to bring their parts to the auction. Parts and non-complete basket cases will have a 20 percent seller’s premium, and rolling complete project bikes will have a 10 percent seller's premium. Buyers will pay a 10 percent premium on everything. Taxes will be collected on parts only.

And Friday is just the beginning, as Saturday will see Bator Auctions hosting their second Barber International Auction at the Barber Vintage Festival, again at 2 p.m. Bator says they have 70 bikes listed already, and he expects that number to rise to 150 by auction day.

Motorcycle Classics will be there, hosting our annual Motorcycle Classics Vintage Bike Show. The feature this year is Cafés, Custom and Bobbers, and we’ll have trophies in six other categories, including British, European, Competition, American, Japanese and People’s Choice. Just go here to pre-register for our show. We’ll also be hosting The Gathering of the Gammas, a special Barber-only event celebrating 25 years since the introduction of the square-four, water-cooled 2-stroke Suzuki Gamma. Should be fun, so be there, or be square! – Richard Backus 

Cannonball rider Matt Olsen, center, with his 1913 Sears at the start of the Cannonball rally. Matt crashed out of the rally during Stage Five. 

In a bid to go shore-to-shore across the U.S. in 17 days on pre-1916 machines, Motorcycle Cannonball riders have completed the first five stages of their objective. As expected, drama has already been high with in-route mechanical breakdowns and the accompanying personal heartbreak, a leader-board that continues to change. Matt Olsen, Motorcycle Cannonball rider #85, crashed his 1913 Sears while riding the fifth stage.

According to Matt’s father, Carl Olsen, who is also a rider in the rally, Matt hit a pothole and went into a shimmy on his 1913 Sears. Matt had almost straightened his machine out when the wobble turned into a tank slapper and he went over the handlebars. Both bones in his left forearm were broken, requiring surgery that Carl reports he came through very well. Matt is in a cast, which will immobilize his arm and wrist for the six weeks required to allow the bones to heal correctly. In addition to the arm, Matt also has numerous face cuts and a “slightly broken nose,” but prognosis is good and there is expected to be no permanent damage. Matt will fly home from Huntsville, Ala., to Aberdeen, S.D.

Carl relayed a message from Matt, saying Matt was pulling for the rest of the Cannonballers. “This whole event is just awesome. The riders are all working together and helping each other to make as many miles as they possibly can and it’s revitalizing their spirit. Everybody’s in it for everybody else. I will definitely be back next year,” Matt told his dad. It won’t be on the Sears, however, since the bike is reportedly totaled.

The 25-year-old holds the distinction of being the youngest man to have the title of Iron Butt Rider, having earned the title twice in one week. One title was for riding 1,000 miles on the oldest Harley-Davidson, a 1936 H-D Knucklehead he rode two-up, and again in the same week for covering the 1,000 miles solo on a 1939 H-D.

All told, riders in the Cannonball, officially the Pre-1916 Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Run, will ride 3,294 miles across 11 states before finishing up in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sept. 26. We hope to catch up with them during a one-day stop in Hot Spring, Ark., Sept. 17. We’ll report what we learn next week.

Follow the Cannonball at the Cannonball website at www.motorcyclecannonball.com.

 
Brad Steorts and his 1967 BSA Hornet, which got our nod for Best BSA, the featured category at this year's Motorcycle Classics Bonneville GP Vintage Motorcycle Show. 

The 5th Annual Bonneville Vintage GP has come and gone, yet another fabulous event in a string of spectacular celebrations of vintage bikes and racing. Classic Nortons and Hondas ripped around the 2.2-mile course on the west track at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah, and 50-plus classic motorcycles, including Nortons, Hondas, and Vincents and BSAs, filled the Motorcycle Classics tent in the east paddock for the Motorcycle Classics Vintage Motorcycle Show.

The weather was perfect and blue skies ruled for the 2010 Bonneville Vintage GP, which hosted rounds 16 and 17 of the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA) 2010 AHRMA Michigan Engineering/RaceTech Historic Cup Roadrace Series. Among the throng of vintage racing machines were 32 Honda CB160s and 175s, which crowded the starting grid for Saturday’s Battle of the CB160s LeMans Start. This is great theater for attendees, who get to watch as the racers sprint across the track to their waiting bikes, grabbing hold of the bars and pushing them to a start before roaring off for the first corner and, they all hope, victory. Of course, only one person gets to come in first, and on Saturday that person was CB160 racing stalwart Mick Hart, followed in quick succession by Eirik Nielsen and Joe Pethoud of Vicious Cycle fame. The trio repeated their performance in Sunday’s LeMans start, exactly duplicating their positions from Saturday. CB160 racing is tight, and these guys and gals bring huge excitement with their little bikes. Big horsepower? Maybe not so much, but the fun is huge.

Truth be told, I didn’t get to watch much of the racing, sequestered as I was over in the Motorcycle Classics tent tending to our annual bike show. We had an excellent show, with over 50 bikes vying for top honors in nine categories. Featured marque this year was BSA. Brad Steorts walked away with Best of Show for his immaculate 1967 BSA Hornet, a bike that was perfect in every way and a solid runner, to boot. Actually, all the bikes that won on Saturday were runners, a sub-category, if you will, that we’re particularly fond of. While there were some absolutely amazing machines on hand that probably would have walked away with top honors at another show, we like to focus on bikes that are ridden and used. For instance, Mark Chadwick’s absolutely perfect 1973 Honda CB350 Scrambler with 53 original miles was impossible to fault: If you want to know what one looked like new, this was the bike to examine. Following our Ride ‘Em Don’t Hide ‘Em creedo, however, we gave top honors in the Japanese category to Rob Baggaley for his nicely preserved 1974 Suzuki GT750 Water Buffalo, appropriately accented by the bugs still on his headlamp from riding the bike to the show!

People’s choice went to Canadian Dan Smith, who showed up with his 1939 Vincent HRD Series A Rapide, a machine he hand built from scratch, making his own casting and doing all of his own machine work. It’s an amazing piece of work, and he rides it regularly. FYI: Look for a feature on his reproduction AJS V-4 in an upcoming issue; it’s another amazing bike Dan built completely from scratch. Seems if Dan can’t buy what he wants, he just builds it!

Interest in the bikes was excellent, with our tent literally packed most of the day. The strongest category was British, not exactly surprising given the huge support we get every year from the Utah British Motorcycle Club. It’s fair to say that without the club and its support, and the amazing help we get from them every year – especially from club member Ken Wheadon – our show wouldn’t be what it is. Thankfully, they keep coming back, and bringing new machines every year. Particularly nice to see, especially in light of our recent article on the model, was Steve Seeley’s lovely 1967 Norton P11, a machine he’s equipped with a Norton badge on one side of the tank and Matchless on the other, just to see who’s paying attention! Nice touch. Steve let me take his P11 out for a spin; I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the sound of a British parallel twin running free from the civilized notion of mufflers. Lovely.

Steve Seeley with his 1967 Norton P11, Best Offroad.

If memory serves, there were race registrations for something like 470 positions, making the Bonneville Vintage GP the third most popular race event of the AHRMA season so far. The 2010 AHRMA season wraps up next month in Alabama, when the action moves to the amazing Barber Motorsports Park outside Birmingham, part of the 6th Annual Barber Vintage Festival, a show that keeps getting bigger every year. It’s not to be missed – be there, or be square. – Richard Backus 

The Bonneville Norton team, left to right: Jerry Augusto, Matt Capri, Alan Cathcart, Roger Russell (Photo by Phil Hawkins/Ishootfromthehip.com)

Racers in the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Assoc. (AHRMA) series are on their way to Utah for rounds 16 and 17 of the AHRMA Michigan Engineering/RaceTech Historic Cup Roadrace Series at the 5th Annual Bonneville Vintage GP Presented by Motorcycle Classics. They’ll be descending on Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, west of Salt Lake City, just as other riders finish up the BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials at the famed Bonneville Salt Flats, where a new Norton 961 Commando SE broke the land speed record in the 1,000cc Production Push-rod class, recording an average top speed of 129.191mph.

It was a big day for Stuart Garner’s new Norton Motorcycles, as moto-journalist Alan Cathcart, a former racer and a regular contributor to Motorcycle Classics, took a box-stock Norton 961 Commando SE to the new record Monday, August 30. The record was previously held by a Buell, which hit a two-way average of 126.398mph last year. I spoke with Cathcart briefly prior to the run, and he was confident that he and the Norton team, led by Norton importer/distributor Matt Capri of South Bay Norton in Lomita, Calif., would break the Buell’s record.

While 129mph doesn’t sound especially fast, keep in mind that power output drops as elevation increases. The flats sit at 4,219ft above sea level. And running on the salt isn’t like running on pavement; there’s a lot more wheel spin as tires try to find grip in the hard-packed salt. Congratulations to Cathcart, Capri and Norton Motorcycles. We hope to post more on the effort after we’ve had a chance to speak with Cathcart directly.

Meanwhile, racers in the vintage scene are busily preparing for the 5^th Annual Bonneville Vintage GP Presented by Motorcycle Classics down the road in Tooele, Utah, at Miller Motorsports Park. Racer preregistration for Miller has been impressive, with 470 spots already filled, making the Bonneville Vintage GP the third most popular event for the 2010 AHRMA season. Only Daytona and Portland have exceeded those numbers this year, further proof, we’d say, of how much the vintage crowd loves racing at Miller, even if it is off the beaten track. Racers and attendees rave about Miller. Racers love the excellent surface of the 2.2-mile circuit run on the east half of the Miller track and the superlative pit facilities, and attendees get to take it all in from the impressive grand stands, the surrounding mountains providing an impressive backdrop to the racing going on below them.

Motorcycle Classics will be there as we are every year, supporting the racers and holding our annual Motorcycle Classics Vintage Motorcycle Show. This year’s featured marque is BSA, and we’ll be giving out trophies in 10 categories, including Best BSA, British, American, Offroad and People’s Choice. Preregistration for the show is closed, but you can register at the event starting at 8 a.m. on Saturday, September 4. The show begins at 10 a.m., judging is at 3 p.m. and we’ll host our awards ceremony at 4:30 p.m. See you there! – Richard Backus